Broken
by white orchids
Summary: Response to WIKTT: Broken challenge. Post war, Severus and Hermione's relationship is in ruins, she wants to repair and start over, he's fine with letting go. or is he?
1. Default Chapter

**Author's note: Ah! I am attempting to start and finish another story. They're not my characters, just some toys in my toybox I've deceided to play with! I hope you enjoy the story. It's a response to WIKTT: Broken challenge. I apologize for grammar and spelling mistakes I don't have a beta, but if anyone is interested...**

**Hope you enjoy! Review Lots!**

**Chapter One**

It had been a year. 5 years of treading on shakey ground and broken glass, for both of them. Five years since the final battle, since everyone died. Hermione was alone. Except for _him_, and that was a subject she didn't even want to get started on. They lived together, like they had been for the 6 moths prior to the battle, but now it was more like coexsisting. They hardly spoke, Severus Snape had taken to sleeping in the guest bedroom of his own apartments. Hermione kept the heavy hunter green velvet drapes drawn over the full length windows. She hardly ever left the room anymore. There was no one to see, no one to talk to. She let herself waste away all by herself. Holed up in Severus' former bedroom.

It was obvious their relationship had taken a beating. They almost never spoke to one another unless it was to fight or blame the other for something. About 3 times a month Severus would go to Hermione for squelchy, mechanical sex. She just laid there, unaffected. "How's the weather doing today? What did the house elves cook for lunch? Did you pay the water bill?" running through her head as he spent himself inside of her.

Severus often wondered how he'd let it get to this point. Why didn't they just let go and move on? Then he realised that neither one of them had anything to move onto. All Hermione had left was the occasional visit from an ever pregnant Ginny Weasley-Potter who seemed to have taken it upon herself to replace those lost in the war. Harry, once her closest companion, no longer spoke to her. Not since she told him about her and Snape.

She and Severus had everything going in their relationship. They were compatable in every way. Intellectually they matched one another and what she was missing he had because of age. They shared everything with one another, secrets, stories, desires, hopes and dreams. Everything was going to be perfect. Until he didn't return from a gathering one night in May five years earlier. She knew that her life wouldn't be the same. Of course, she knew that about 2 weeks earlier, when she was checking her calender and saw she was about 12 days late. Hermione was going to tell him that night. She never did. Twodays later he stumbled back onto Hogwarts grounds, bleeding and gasping for breath. Hagrid found him and Hermione had spent days and nights by him in the hospital wing, while the battle raged outside.   
Her sleepless nights and constant worrying cost her her child and in the end the only reason she and Severus had survived the battle was because he had been in a coma and she refused to leave him by himself. She never told him.

Now when he came to her she struggled inside of her head. Thoughts somewhere between lunchtime and water bills were hopes of maybe him getting her pregnant again and despairing cries that she never have to go through that again.   
They were to wed that summer. A small ceremony. She had the perfect dress on a stand in the guest room. It still sat there, even though it was now Severus' room. He found himslef reaching out for it from time to time. Wishing his Hermione would come back to him the way she was. He regretted surviving the battle as well, but what had driven her to this? She barely ate, seemingly afraid of food, and when she did eat it was small portions of meat and vegtables, hardly anything to sustain her, really.

Couldn't she see how much he cared for her? Anyone else would've been done with her. 5 years of no response from her, hardly any acknowledgement at all, but he stayed with her, hoping that one day she would snap out of it. 'Maybe today will be the day', his first thought as he woke up in the early morning, but as he sat down to breakfast alone, he realised that today was not the day and tomorrow wasn't likely to be the day either.

Hermione dangled her legs over the side of the bed. She threw the down duvet from her legs and stood up slowly, so not to become faint. She padded her way to the bathroom to complete her morning routine for the first time in a couple of weeks. She'd become a very dirty young woman.

After a long, hot shower, Hermione stepped out of the bathroom, her skin pink from scrubbing herself raw. She wrapped herself up in the large white terry bathrobe and walked into the breakfast room adjoining the small kitchen. Severus was still at the head of the table. When he saw her he nearly spit his tea all over himself.

"Hermione, what are you doing out of bed?"

"Taking a shower, eating breakfast." She motioned towards the basket of toast sat in the middle of the table. "Could you pass me the lemon curd?"

"Sure." He passed the small, ornate jar to her and watched her eat in silence.

"I'm tired Severus." She looked up at him between bites to see his reaction to this statement. Nothing. He kept looking at his paper.

"Then go back to bed. Maybe if you ate more, you wouldn't be so tired all the time."

"I meant of this." She gestured at the space between them with the knife in her hand. He sighed and put his paper down.

"We are both guilty of 'this'." he replied, mocking her gesture. "What are you trying to tell me? If you want to leave you could have done it ages ago. I've already moved out of my bed, I won't move out of my apartments completely for you."

Hermione bit her bottom lip. She knew from experience that although his words and tones were harsh he didn't mean it the way it sounded. He was right, he had given up a lot for her where other men would have just sent her away. She was eternally grateful for that. She maybe even loved him for that. Loved him. Again. She hadn't felt like that in years, especially for him.

"I wasn't asking you to, I -"

"Well then what is it? Can't you ever arrive at a point in conversation?" He snapped.

"Not with you yelling at me, no." She replied quietly, dangerously.

"Then what is it?" He asked, picking up his paper again.

"I want to go out."

"Then go. You know the passwords, I promise not to change them while you're gone."

"I want to go with you." She whispered, staring at her feet like a child.

"I have classes."

"Maybe, for dinner?"

Exasperated, Snape threw his paper down on the side of his plate.   
"We have house elves to cook for us, do our shopping, why are you insisting on this? It's a waste of money and my time."

Hermione snorted at his 'waste of money' comment. He was so tight fisted. She knew that money was no issue.   
"I wanted us to go out. Like we used to."

"I can hardly remember it was so long ago." He replied sourly. He looked up and saw that tears threatened to fall down her face. He almost immediately regretted his comment. Almost.  
On that note, Severus stood up and buttoned the last few buttons on the collar of his robes. "I have classes until 3. I will see you this evening." And with that he left.

Hermione let the tears fall this time, hot against her red face. She was ready for change. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he had been and she missed her chance. It was worth another shot, she decided. She needed to change things. She knew there were problems, lots of them but she wanted to put things right. Like an old teacup with cracks, she wanted to mend everything and make it useful and beautiful again. But maybe this teacup was destined to break in her hands. She shuddered to think about where she'd be without Severus. Looking around at the rooms that lay in a slight state of disorder she immeditaly got around to cleaning. If he didn't want to go out that was fine. She'd cook for him.

* * *

**This first chapter is dedicated to everyone who has read my other, unfinished stories. I apologize for my hiatus from them and I can definitely promise good things from this one. For everyone who reviewed them, thank you so much. Where your praise should have motivated me, I let you down by never posting more chapeters. I should be thankful for one review, instead of upset I didn't receive more. I promise not to have that outlook any longer. Thanks. **


	2. Two

**Author's note: Ah! I am attempting to start and finish another story. They're not my characters, just some toys in my toybox I've deceided to play with! I hope you enjoy the story. It's a response to WIKTT: Broken challenge. I apologize for grammar and spelling mistakes I don't have a beta, but if anyone is interested...**

**Hope you enjoy! Review Lots!**

**Chapter Two**

Hermione prepared and presented dinner perfectly. A creamy broccoli soup, roast chicken with rosemary and butter, small salad with pecans and almonds cut up in it and a crème brulee from one of her mother's recipes. The soup was on the table at 5. Severus was back at 10, where he found Hermione asleep at the table, a curl in bowl of what looked to him to be cold green muck. He noticed that the formerly untidy rooms were now spotless, everything had a place and was in that place.

'House elves are doing their jobs for the first time in months.' he thought to himself. He cleared away the dinner that the school provided, or so he thought, and picked Hermione up to bring her to bed. He slipped off her trainers and pulled the duvet up to her chin. He didn't pause to consider her puffy eyes and red cheeks, the fine lines appearing between her eyes from worrying about him. He swept away an errant curl from her forehead and turned and left the room.  
'Alone. On a Friday. With no papers to grade.' he thought to himself. Hermione was basically passed out, what was he to do? He paced in front of the windows before he opened them to let in the warm summer breeze. He sat down to his chess table and began to play by himself. As he sat poised to checkmate he heard a soft clicking of the door handle being turned. He looked up as Hermione slowly entered, wearing a long cream coloured silk dressing gown. Severus raised an eyebrow at her.

'This must have something to do with this morning.' She walked towards him, slowly untying the belt and letting the fabric fall down her shoulders to the floor. She kept walking towards him. Severus sat back in his chair, shifting, trying to find a comfortable position as his erection pushed againt the tightness of his trousers. A light breeze came into the room making Hermiones nipples stand taught and her flesh goosebumped. She ran her fingers down Severus' chest and knelt down in front of him. Unbuttoning his trousers quickly she grabbed him firmly and let on hand slide up and down his shaft as she began kissing and gently blowing on the tip of his cock.

* * *

Severus awoke with a start. A cold wind had blown 3 pawns off of his chess table and the sound of them falling on the floor made him stir from his very vivd dream. He groaned quietly and picked up the pawns. He stood up and wiped the sleep from his eyes as he closed the windows. Snape pulled his shirt off over his head and climbed into the large four-poster, burrowing beneath the blankets and pillows like he always did. He wanted another night alone to be over. The sooner it was over, to the sooner Hermione might be to coming back.

* * *

Hermione woke up in the black cashmere jumper and jeans she had been wearing the night before. All at once the memories came rushing back. The waiting was the worst bit, it always was. He was done at 3 and by 9 she was asleep on the table, still waiting for him to turn up. She knew deep in her heart that no matter how sour their relationship turned, she'd always wait for him. She'd waited through school, waited beside him in the hospital wing, countless nights while the war raged outside. She waited everyday for him to return, even though he probably didn't notice it. Hermione would sit down with a book and read until she heard his voice from the otherside of the portrait. When he entered she'd smile inside, get up and return to her rooms. He probably though she was avoiding him. He didn't know that somewhere, deep inside, even undetectable to Hermione, that her biggest fear was him not returning.

Severus woke with a start that morning, grumbled and got out of bed. He dressed quickly, not bothering with a shower, it was the weekend after all and classes had just finished for the summer. Clad in a stiffly startched white shirt and black trousers still warm from the press, left the solitary confines of the room where he slept in favour of the breakfast room.

Steaming plates of greasy sausages, friend potatoes, scrambled and boiled eggs and beans lined the table, with a basket of toast, sweet rolls and croissants at each end of the table. Hermione was already sat down at one end, frizzy hair haphazerdly tied back, with small flecks of ink on the tip of her nose. She was doing her daily crossword. Severus sat down opposite her and poured himself a strong cup of black coffee. He looked up at her, she was slowly chewing on some eggs and she stared intently at the paper that was about 3 inches from her face. She brought another forkful of eggs to her mouth and poked her cheek instead, spilling eggs all over her puzzle.

"Dammit!"

"What's wrong, he asked, looking over top of his newspaper."

"I will never finish this puzzle."

"You're right you won't if you keep whining like a child. Slow down and think." He dismissed.

"I want to go somewhere."

"Then go Hermione! I told you yesterday, I'm not going to change the passwords while you're gone. You act like you're a prisoner."

"I want us to go somewhere together." she countered. She wouldn't be pushed over like yesterday. He looked up at her.

"What? Why would you want something like that?"

"Because a long time ago we used to go everywhere together. We were going to go see everything, remember? Travel the world. We used to have plans Severus. I'm tired of living in this little bubble where we hardly say two words to one another. I'm tired of pretending that the only thing that has changed is us. Everything's changed, I know. I want us to leave these walls and acknowledge that fact! I want a new start."

"You want a new start? Then go. I can give you a new start right now. I want no part in this silly little dream of yours. I'm happy to stay here, pretending. You think it doesn't bother me that classes are getting smaller and smaller every year? I am racked with more guilt each passing year, ungrateful students muttering in the corridor that I slept through the battle, avoided it, abandoned everyone. Abandoned Dumbledore, a man I admired, a man who was the closest thing to a fa-" he choked on the word. "That I ever had." He quickly finished.  
"I don't need silly holiday plans, I need to stay here in this 'little bubble' as you call it. It is my security and my order that I take solice in now and if I leave...well if I leave i'm not sure what will happen."

"You're right, it is only your 'order' that you care for now. Not even me. You haven't come to our room in weeks." She spat.

"Why should I care for an unfeeling harpy like yourself?"

Hermione stared at him. He regretted the words as soon as they passed his lips. She stood up and went quietly to the bedroom. 'Their' bedroom, she still called it. Severus sat back and sighed, rubbing his hands over his face and through his hair. Minutes ticked by slowly before he stood up and followed her. As soon as he placed his hand on the doorknob the door swung open, as if it was expecting him to follow her inside. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, sobbing into a pillow.

"Hermione?" her name came out in a quiet croak that he wasn't expecting. He crossed the room and sat next to her.  
"You can go wherever you want. I can make all of the arrangments. Take as much time as you want, spend as much as you want, it doesn't matter to me. Buy yourself something nice. New robes maybe?" he suggested, taking into account she was still wearing robes from her school days. "Do whatever it is you want to do. You don't need me. You've made it clear these past few years that you don't need me."

Her head shot up at his statement.

"What?"

"Well, You and I get along fine in this arrangement. You don't need me tripping over myself to keep you happy. You can do that on your own."

"Happy. You think I'm happy?" She laughed a cold, flat laugh. "You are amazing sometimes. They say that the smarter you are the less common sense you have, but this. Happy? This takes the cake."  
"Severus I remember laying in this bed with you, making wedding plans, holiday plans, family plans." She stopped shortly and swallowed. "We used to be normal."

"I don't think we were ever 'normal'." he snorted. His comment illicted a small smile from Hermione.

"The point is that made me happy. Staying in weekends with you, or just daily shopping with you. Having a lie-in _with you_. Beginning to notice a pattern? I want us to go away to find some of that again. I'm tired of us not talking. We're like strangers. We used to finish each others thoughts and sentences. Now the only contact we have is whenever you decided to come around, jackhammer yourself into me then leave. I am ready to move on."

"I. I don't think I can move on with you then. Obviously I am the one holding you back."

She turned to him, said softly, "what makes you think that?"

"I saw how the war affected you. You lost everyone. Those who didn't die were disguested that you wasted your time with me, and even angrier at me that I wasn't out there fighting. I know this sounds arrogant but you and I are two of the best wizards in our world, everyone knew that. While it was Potter that would bring down Voldemort, everyone, including myself, couldn't help but wonder that if you and I had fought, would there have been less casualties?"

"I had my reasons not to fight."

"I hardly think I'm a good enough reason."

"You are good enough. I loved you, love you still. Sometimes I wonder where your love for me has gone. If it was ever really there at all." She turned and looked into his eyes as if she was searching for something. She reached up to touch his face, tuck a strand of fine hair behind his ear but he moved away.

"No. You don't need me. I should have died, this world doesn't need someone like me." He said through gritted teeth.

"Then I'll go." She said quietly, shrinking her belongings into her bag. As she made her way to the bedroom door he spoke up again,

"You forgot the dress."

"No I didn't. I leave it there until you come to your senses. No matter how long it takes I'll wait for you. I always have."

With that she turned and walked out into the summer sun. Severus stood and watched from his window at her departing back.

She never turned around.

* * *

**To my reviewers**

**June: Severus isn't so much of a saint. He's pretty conflicted himself, he just tries to avoid taking it out on Hemrione, since she's been through a lot in her young years. Legally, Pomfrey cannot tell him anything. Snape and Hermione weren't evern married. The only way he'll know is if Hermione ever sees fit to tell him.   
I'll try to get back into the grove of "you made me forget my dreams" once I post a few chapters of this story. **

**Innogen: They'll start to be more interactive as the story progresses. It'll continue, I already have 3 more chapters done. **

**Sirius Star Holder: your wish is my command wink more updates for your reading pleasure.**

**Starlight soul: I really liked your challenge. It gave me a chance to respond with characters that were both allowed to be hurt. Hermione is too often made to be the one who consoles Severus, but she could lose just as much, if not more than he could. Severus has the advantage as he's built up his defenses and doesn't have half as many friends (or so we see) as Hermione does and lets face it, not all of Hermione's friends are going to survive, or even escape unscathed. Wait until you see Harry. wink **

**Thanks for the reviews! I'll try to get out a chapter a week at least. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: After a few years of absence on the writing end of things, I am back and I VOW to finish both this story and Non Sequitur. I also have just posted a new story, A Second Chance that is mostly AU but does give a new (i think it's new anyways) insight into an HG/SS pairing. **

**Chapter 3**

His mouth hung open in a cry for her to come back that never quite escaped his lips. He clenched his face tightly and made his hands into fists and alternated this position with stretching them out as he paced in front of the door.

"I have to follow her!" He mumbled to himself and as he made to grasp the door knob a thought flickered in the back of his mind, 'you don't even know where she's gone to.'

Severus sat back in his armchair, defeated. Once again he had been hurt and humiliated but it was just as much his fault this time around. He lost the woman he loved because of his arrogance and pride and now he had no way of getting her back. She had said she'd wait for him, not that she'd come back. Snape groaned loudly and rose from the chair to continue pacing all the while racking his brain for ideas.

It then occurred to him that both of her parents were dead. She would not be returning home, but the closest thing to home now, especially since said pseudo-home still housed her best girl-friend. She would be at The Burrow.

At that moment Severus realized he could have jumped up and clicked his heels if he wanted to, not that he did, but it was just the acknowledgment of such an act that made him seem more human to himself. He was that much more comfortable in his skin, at the thought of Hermione and finding her.

Severus grabbed a pinch of floo powder and called out "Minerva McGonagall's Office!" and with a 'woosh' of green flames his thin face appeared in the fireplace of Headmistress McGonagall. She turned and started when she saw him floating there.

"Severus! To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" She smiled at him.

"Minerva I am leaving. I have important business to attend to and I do not know when I will be back."

"What's wrong Severus? What is going on?" McGonagall began in a panic-stricken voice.

"Nothing is wrong." He sighed and continued, "I just need to go away for awhile and re-evaluate some things. It is entirely personal and my motivations are completely and utterly selfish but I need to go."

"Well, do you have a replacement for your classes?"

"No, I do not. Nor do I have time to find one. I understand the very unprofessional manner in which I have descended upon you, but you must understand that what business I must attend to is of upmost importance."

McGonagall pursed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes slightly at Snape.

"She left you didn't she?"

"What! What are you talking about?" It came out as a poorly rehearsed lie instead of a genuine question. "I really, must be going now. Headmistress." Severus gave a curt nod and took a step back into his rooms.

Now that McGonagall knew he would be gone, he needed a game plan. A mode of action for when he saw Hermione again.

Snape began pacing again, slowly wearing a trench in the floorboards, as Hermione always used to tease him. He missed the genuine smiles she would get on her face. The true happiness that seemed to always radiate from her skin. She had an almost glow about her whenever they were together. Perhaps it was him imagining because he loved her so much, but the few who accepted their relationship did because of that glow, Severus was convinced.

He ran into his room and grabbed a couple pairs of pants and some shirts and one spare robe. Shoving them all into an overnight bag, he grabbed another pinch of floo powder and this time stepped wholly into the fireplace as he shouted "The Burrow!"

A 'woosh' followed by a dull thud was all the warning Molly Weasley had that she would need yet another setting at the dinner table. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and pulled another plate out of the cabinet.

In fact she had scarcely turned around when she noticed the looming shadow behind her. This did give her a start and she turned quickly, clenching a long, menacing knife her hands.

"Dear Lord Severus! You gave me quite a fright. I swear you can be so much like a child sometimes, even if you don't realize it! Fred and George spent their entire 17th year appearting behind me and scaring me half to death and now it appears you have come to scare the other half into the grave."

"Molly I have come to do nothing of the kind. I'm here about Hermione." He whispered quietly, like a child being put in his place.

"Why?" Molly asked with a hand on her hip.

"We had a row this morning and I would give anything to take it back, but she left and I was hoping she might have come here."

"Well she did, Severus. She was here for about 20 minutes and then she and Ginny both left."

"Do you know where they've gone to?" Severus asked, barely concealing the excitement in his voice.

"As a matter of fact I do, but I am not telling you. If Hermione needs some time to herself I am going to make sure she gets it. I will not have you swooping in behind her in the middle of a massage or something."

"You don't understand, she wanted us to take a trip together! I want to surprise her." Severus pleaded with Molly, but she would not budge.

"It seems that if she wanted you both to go together you would already know where she's going. Of course, by that same token, you'd already be there, wouldn't you?" She snarled, showing her teeth.

"Point taken. May I stay here then? I want to be here when she returns as she probably won't be coming back to our home."

"And just why is that?"

"I don't wish to discuss it with you or anyone other than Hermione. It is our personal business and something that we need to address before we cannot turn around and change our minds. This is why I need to see her. You have got to let me stay here if you will not tell me where she has gone." Whether is was the ever weakening tone of his voice or the love that shown in his eyes, Molly Weasley agreed to let Severus stay until Hermione and Ginny saw fit to return to the burrow.

She patted his cheek and went upstairs to fix a room up for him. Severus sank into a kitchen chair and for the first time in years, he cried into his hands. For everyone and everything he lost and the most important person in the world, who he was about to lose. He cried for it all.


End file.
